Snap, Crackle and Pop!

Not sure what to put under the tree or stuff into a stocking this holiday season for the food lover, wannabe Master Chef or gourmand in your life? We’ve got you covered with this helpful list of ideas and suggestions, all sourced from Caledon businesses.

Just a few oils in the excellent selection at Garden Foods Market in Bolton

Garden Foods, without question is our favorite food grocery haven in all of Caledon. A gift certificate to the store is virtually a food passport to such items as Niagara’s world class Pingue Prosciutto, a wide selection of locally sourced organic goods & provisions and the biggest selection of olive oils you’ll find at any store in Caledon. Garden Foods is also home to a vast array of beautiful and reasonably priced serving dishes. A gift certificate to this long time Caledon, family owned business, is a straight up win win.

Cookbooks continue to be wildly popular. Forster’s Book Garden has a good selection on hand and if they don’t have what you are looking for they would be more than happy to special order in a book for you. Our top cookbook suggestions for this holiday season include: Sweet by Yotam Ottolenghi & Helen Goh; Dinner In An Instant by Melissa Clark and Smitten Kitchen by Debra Perlman.

For the beef lover in your life, imagine having a specially selected slab of beef, tagged with your name on it and then left to age in the aging locker over at Heatherlea Farm Shoppe.

Not all wine glasses are created equal. The Naked Vine has a great selection of stemware and decanters that’ll be sure to please the Oenophile in your life. In particular, Eisch stemware, known for being a lead-free glassware, that creates an oxygenation process for improving the aeration of the wine in the glass.

Broadway Farm’s Market, besides having a bevy a beautiful giftware this market has a great selection of Lodge Cast Iron Cookware (photo at top). This pre-seasoned cookware has a reputation for being the best cast iron you can lay your mitts on.

Kitchen gadgetry is always popular for those who want that latest toys for their kitchen. This year’s hot ticket item is the Instant Pot. It’s a bit of a crockpot/pressure cooker combined and last time we checked were on sale at Canadian Tire

A CSA sampling from Caledon’s Mount Wolfe Forest Farm

At Mount Wolfe Forest Farms you can get the gift that keeps on giving all year long with a subscription to one of their monthly CSA boxes. The upside of this CSA box is that it also includes such things as eggs, locally sourced breads and jams, honey or preserves.

Get our your knives and your spatulas and hone your cooking skills with some cooking classes over at Gourmandissimo in Caledon East.

If you want a break from the kitchen and need a fun night out, you can never go wrong with gift certificates to some of Caledon’s amazing dining spots. Top spots for dining in Caledon include:

Just in time for the holiday season, Miller’s Meats will be featuring beautiful handmade maple wood cutting boards that in our opinion could do double duty also as a Charcuterie board.

Last, but not least, how about giving a gift from the heart. Make a donation in the name of your favourite family cook by supporting a number of local initiatives. How about sending a meal to a senior through Caledon Meals on Wheels , or supporting a family in need through Caledon Community Services or Bethell Hospice.

Editor’s note: Subsequent to publishing this article we received the following notice from Broadway Farms:

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Patti Foley, Publisher

Patti is an advocate for Caledon. As a former Regional Councillor and a long-time community volunteer she is passionate about communicating information about its issues, news, events, people, non-profits and businesses.